Normally I’d be in already, right in, but she was still standing, sledgehammered by my presence, squarely in the doorway.
“Oh! Of course you can.” She collected herself, gave me a quick kiss, the same one Judas gave, and stood aside to let me through. I went on down the hallway to the long creamy kitchen. I knew that room intimately: every willow-pattern plate on the oak dresser, every cup, every pan hanging over the wooden island, the National Trust calendar hanging on the wall, which Kate would flip through impatiently when the phone rang—I knew every inch. Tears threatened. Don’t think, no, don’t think. Kate was behind me.
“Actually,” I turned, “I came up to see your play.”
“My play?” She looked rattled.
I smiled and sat down on a stool at the granite breakfast bar. “Yes, you know. As You Like It.”
“Oh!” Her eyes were wide. Scared. “Oh, the play! Oh no, I dropped out of that ages ago. Haven’t done that for a while.”
She fluttered around the kitchen, folding a dishcloth over the taps at the sink, putting a glass away on the draining board, her hands, it seemed, unable to stay still.
“Oh?”
“Yes, it all became too much. The rehearsals, you know, every week. And Orlando always seemed to have loads of homework on a Wednesday and—well, you know how it is.”
“Yes. I do,” I said softly.
Tears scuttled up like a ball in my throat as I watched her fidget around her kitchen. Kate. Watched her open the huge, pale blue American fridge that I’d envied and opened and shut so many times, to get the milk out, to grab something to make the children sandwiches as she made us a pot of tea after school—“Ham, shall I make, Kate? Or cheese?” Calling out to make myself heard over the noise the boys were making in the conservatory. I knew the exact, soft, expensive click of that fridge door shutting, as it did now. Kate had a bottle of white wine in her hand.
“Drink?” She attempted a smile.
“No, thanks, I’m driving.”
She looked surprised and poured herself a large one.
“So…you just stopped going?” I watched her, as a cat would a mouse.
“What? Oh. Yes. I felt terrible about letting them all down, but the juggling just became too much.”
I nodded. “Yes. Casper said.”
“Casper?”
“Yes, well, I went, you see. And he was there. You remember Casper, Kate, the art dealer. The one I had lunch with, who jumped me.”
“Oh. Yes, I—” Her eyes were big with fear.
“We had a drink together in the interval. He was there because his wife was in the play. Charlotte. They’re back together again, which is nice, but we were recalling our disastrous lunch, which of course you instigated, but not with a view to selling my paintings. I gather you thought I was lonely! Thought I might like a companion. Anyone would think I didn’t have a husband of my own!” I didn’t recognise my voice, didn’t know how it could carry on. Kate was in trouble now.
“Well, I—I thought you could use a friend, you know…” Her voice was almost a whisper, her face grey, lowered to the counter.
“But I’ve got loads of friends! I’ve got you for a start. Tell you what, I might have a cup of coffee before I drive home. Instant will do.”
She turned, very shaken, but gladly went to the sink to fill the kettle. I’d seen her seize that kettle so many times, cheerfully, confidently, in irritation, cursing her tap, which splashed, setting it down on the Aga, the pale blue one, which matched the fridge, the one she’d fought Sebastian for as her nod to a farmhouse kitchen, and which we’d sit either side of on a cold winter’s afternoon, while Rufus and Orlando played, the lids thrown up for warmth, Kate laughing that her mother, a country woman, would be horrified at the heat loss from the oven. But then she’d laugh, “It’s not as if I’ve got jugged hare in there—all this ironmongery for a solitary baked potato for Sebastian when he finally gets home!” And we’d gossip about Carrington House, about the mothers, about how Ursula Moncreif had the hots for Mr. Pritchard, wondering if Miss Tulliver, the school secretary, was a lesbian, and whether the odd German chap two doors down who shuffled around with a coat over his pyjamas was actually a mass murderer with bodies under his floorboards, and—oh, all manner of silly, silly things as we picked at bars of chocolate, whiling away the hours until it was time to get the boys into their baths, time for our husbands to come home. I sucked in my breath. Oh God, please tell me this started last week. Not then. Not way back then. But in my heart, I knew.
“I’d forgotten Casper,” Kate was saying as she shakily measured out the Nescafé. Her face was wretched. She looked about ten years older.
“So had I, until today. Good heavens, there’s someone at the back door, Kate.”
Alex, fresh from the basement steps at the back of the house, and fresh from a shower too, by the look of his wet hair, had half opened the French windows, got his foot inside, before he saw me. His face went from delicious excitement to dismay in a trice.
“Imogen!”
“Hello, darling.”
“Wh-what on earth…?”
“I came up to see Kate’s play. Did you run out of sugar, or something?”
His eyes darted to Kate. She met them briefly, in fright, then hid her face in the sink.
“Yes, um, coffee. I fancied a coffee. Hadn’t got any. I just wondered, Kate—”
“Of course.” Her voice was only barely audible as she passed him the jar of Nescafé, not looking at him.
“Oh, well, have it here, now we’re all here!” I smiled. “Very jolly.”
I reached up to where the mugs were kept and got one down, taking the Nescafé from him and spooning some in. Thought processes visibly whirring, he gingerly came into the kitchen and perched on a stool at the breakfast bar opposite me, as Kate tried to pour boiling water from the kettle. She kept missing the mugs on the granite surface.
“Here.” I took the kettle from her, so tempted to feel sorry for her, dear, dear Kate, her face crumpled with shock and pain, and so, so tempted to pour it on my husband’s groin. I nearly did. Nearly moved my hand just six inches to the left of his mug. Would it drop off, I wondered? His penis? If I poured for long enough? I was pretty sure he’d never be able to use it again. No, he’d probably have to have it amputated.
“Milk?”
“No, thanks,” he muttered.
No, of course, he took it black at night, but then I’d forgotten. Hadn’t shared a coffee with him at night for so long.
“So, you came up for the play, then straight here?” he said lightly, conversationally, much better than Kate, who was mute, sunk in misery, but then he’d had more practice, hadn’t he? With Eleanor, when he was married to Tilly.
“No, I watched the first half, then realised Kate wasn’t in it and left. Then I went to Simpson’s to see if you wanted to have a drink after your dinner with the Cronins. I left a note with the maître d’.”
He frowned. “That’s odd. I didn’t get it.”
Because you weren’t fucking there.
“Then I drove on to where I thought we could meet, that new wine bar you’d read about in the Standard. You know, the one in Burlington Street? Romano’s?”
There was a highly charged silence. Alex glanced at Kate, who, for the first time, raised terrified, beautiful blue eyes from the counter. Both pairs then swivelled to me. They knew.
“Imo…” began Alex.
“And what should I see,” I went on, my voice trembling with emotion, “as I sat there in my car, thinking how fun and happening it looked, this bar, this night spot, but two fun, happening people emerging, their bodies entwined, high on excitement, high on the promise of what was to come, kissing in the street. My husband and my best friend.”
Kate sank down on to a stool, shoulders sagging, arms limp, holed below the misery line. Her face buckled and t
ears streamed down her cheeks unchecked, as Alex struggled to exact damage limitation.
“Now look, Imo, this is all my fault—” he began softly, but my eyes were on Kate.
“Too right it’s your fault. You’re a serial womaniser, Alex. You can’t stay faithful to one woman for any length of time. You couldn’t to Tilly and you couldn’t to me. You have no moral compass, no notion of honour or duty, you’re like a little boy in a sweet shop. You see something glittering and pretty and you’ve got to have it. I knew you were having an affair, I’ve known it in my heart for a long time, but Kate…”
My voice broke. It was odd. I felt more grief at her betrayal. Much more. Kate was sobbing.
“I’m so sorry,” her hands covered her face now. “Imo, you have no idea—”
“Of course I had no idea. I had no idea when I asked you if Alex could live in your basement, had no idea how perfect that would be for the pair of you, how joyfully you would receive that request, how neatly I’d played into your hands.”
“No!” she shrieked, jerking her wet face up. “It wasn’t like that! I tried so hard! I was the one who tried to put an end to it, who kept telling Alex it had to stop. I even wanted to move out of London to get away from him, and when Sebastian wouldn’t, it was me who persuaded Alex to move instead. I thought that putting distance between us would help us to stop.”
“You orchestrated my move to the country?” I boggled at the ramifications. A tiny cottage. My son changing schools…
“Yes, and I told him it was over when you left, finished, but I was so so miserable without him, and when you rang and asked about the basement, initially of course I recoiled, but the more I lived with the idea, and the more I missed him, the more I knew I couldn’t resist it.”
Alex was over by the French windows now, his back to us, hands in his pockets, looking out into the dark night. It was almost as if he were peripheral, almost as if we weren’t talking about him at all, as if he were incidental to proceedings.
“I could feel him drifting away, you see, which was what I’d wanted, of course; could feel him going back to you, so our plan was working, the distance was working, but it was horrible. I—wasn’t strong enough. And I was so unhappy. So unhappy,” she said fiercely. “I panicked. Said yes.”
I remembered how short-tempered and snappy she’d been on the phone when we’d first moved out. I’d thought she was jealous of me being in the country. And I remembered a brief, happy time for Alex and me, when he’d made love to me more frequently. I remembered counting the times. Then the tiredness returning.
Alex had opened the French windows now and walked out into the garden, head bowed, gazing down at the damp grass. Literally absenting himself, like a small child who knows the adults need to talk.
“I couldn’t do it!” Her eyes were bright with pain. “I missed him so much, you have no idea how much I love him, Imo,” she hissed fiercely, shocking me. As if she were entitled to love him. “No idea.” She clenched her fists. “It eats at me all day. It’s all I think about, care about.” If he could hear her in the garden she clearly didn’t care about that, either. “I would do anything to keep him, it’s all-consuming.”
Her pain was raw, tangible. It brought me up short. Oh, she loved him all right. She was in real trouble. She was in the sort of trouble I’d been in when I’d worked for him, when he was married to Tilly; when I’d sat outside his office dreaming about him, giving up two years of my life, two years of my painting career to be a secretary; stroking his diary, the chair he sat in, his Anglepoise lamp…she was in that sort of trouble and it came to me, as a great wave of relief, that I was not. I didn’t feel that horrible obsession any more, didn’t feel my whole personality ebbing away, evaporating, as I forgot everything and everyone I’d ever cared about, my whole existence focusing on him. Didn’t feel myself disappearing without him. No. Because I didn’t love him as much as she did. It made me catch my breath. Made me almost feel sorry for her, my best friend, her face crumpled with anguish, shoulders hunched, hands clenched.
“Does Sebastian know? Or suspect?”
“No. He’s away so much, he hardly notices anything.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
She glanced up, fearful. “Why would I do that?”
I shrugged. “Well, I don’t want him. Alex, I mean. You have him, Kate. Tell Sebastian, and go and live with him. Take your children with you. Tilly and I would naturally advise against it, but feel free, he’s all yours.”
She stared at me, shocked. She was trying to work out if I was mocking her, or telling the truth. I was surprised to discover the latter.
“Go on, do it. I’ve suffered for years, wondering where he is, what he’s up to—you have a go. See if you make a better fist of it.”
Yes, OK, I was mocking her now. But I didn’t feel bitter. Or angry. I felt pity. Pity for everything she’d go through. Pity for how it would wreck her life, her pretty, enviable life: this gorgeous house, this surgeon husband, these well-adjusted children, these friends they’d shared, but I knew too that Alex’s gravitational pull was greater than any of these, and that she would do it. She would go down that route. I saw the flash of hope in her eyes that she tried to mask, but couldn’t, as she entertained the possibility. I looked out to Alex in the garden. One man. That one man could do all this—and such an insubstantial man, at that, I thought in surprise. Not a man like Sebastian, a clever, serious, talented man, a man who did great things, who healed people. No, a man, who was not clever, but cunning. Not a nice word. A man the wrong side of forty, with a mediocre job, precious few assets, slightly on the lanky side, and whose teeth, if we’re being picky and I was right now, were not great lately, either. I saw him with brand-new eyes.
Kate followed my gaze. She was looking at him too. And I saw in her eyes what my mother and sister and flatmates must have seen in mine all those years ago, and despaired. They were ablaze; full of an almost messianic light, a zeal, that nothing and nobody was going to get in the way of. Not a husband, not three children, and certainly not a best friend. I swallowed. Felt something approaching awe. I got up from my stool.
“Take him,” I said softly. “Really, he’s all yours. Marry him, Kate, if you like. I’ll give him a quick divorce. Become Mrs. Alex Cameron. Here.” I took off my wedding ring and tossed it at her. It bounced on the work surface. She looked at me, astonished.
“But never forget, Kate, that from his point of view, marrying the mistress only starts another chapter.”
She gazed at me, uncomprehending.
“It creates a vacancy,” I said quietly.
This time our eyes communed, silently and for the last time. I picked up my car keys, cast a final look at my husband’s silhouette in the garden, and then I turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I drove back to the country in a trance. Well, clearly in a trance because the tears were not coursing down my cheeks and I wasn’t hyperventilating or gripping the wheel, struggling to keep the car on the road. I felt calm, controlled even. Shock, I decided as I listened to the windscreen wipers swish away a light drizzle then thud quietly as they hit horizontal; that was it, I must be in shock. Or denial. The tears would come later. Well, they were bound to, weren’t they? I’d lost my husband, lost him to my best friend, two strikes in one. I held my breath, waited for the floodgates to open. They didn’t. They would, though. And after the tears would come the depression as my empty life yawned before me like a chasm: I’d hide away like a recluse, pulling up the drawbridge; a gaunt, grief-stricken figure in a headscarf and dark glasses, who emerged from her cottage only to take her son to school, everyone talking about her, worrying about her—how thin she looks, how pale—well she’s distraught, poor thing, distraught. But somehow…I gazed beyond the wipers to the Catseyes shining in the wet road, listened to the hypnotic swish—thud, swish—thud…somehow, I didn’t t
hink that would happen.
I ransacked my feelings. Why? Why didn’t I think that would happen? I did feel grief, but it was for Kate, not Alex, I realised with a jolt. I felt her betrayal much more keenly. After all, men did cheat on their wives, we all knew that—brains in their trousers, can’t help themselves, poor buggers—and I’d been waiting for Alex to do it for years, been rehearsing this moment in my head for God knows how long, but that Kate should cheat on me…It was unnatural, against all the rules; she was my friend. Suddenly I experienced that thin air feeling again as my lungs appeared to shrink. Yes, my best friend, who’d not only taken my husband, but made a farce of my life too—that was the shaker, I decided. That a great slab of my life was completely different from how I’d imagined it to be. Like a movie shot on two different rolls of film, from two different angles. I was living one version, and all the time another was showing at a different cinema. You could watch both and find them similar—same characters, same houses in the same street in Putney, same children playing in the gardens—but spot the difference. There’s Kate in her kitchen making a cup of tea for her friend, but—no, on the other screen, she’s making a cup of tea for her lover’s wife. Offering her lover’s wife a piece of chocolate as they sit by the Aga together. The deceit was breathtaking. It made me so sad I almost stopped the car. Kate. My best friend. But…was I hers? Kate had lots of friends, I knew that—Lucinda, Betsy, Amanda—and I was her friend across the road. She used to say that: “This is Imo, my friend from across the road.” Close, geographically, but…I swallowed. Anyway, all that was academic. Beside the point. Because, of course, all along she’d been Alex’s friend, not mine.
This did make me breathe through my teeth, make my nostrils flare, as I wondered how on earth they’d managed it? Obviously Kate’s play rehearsals and Alex’s late nights at work had been their cover, but—what, had they met for supper? In town? No, no, of course not, they’d have gone straight to a hotel. Wouldn’t have been brazen enough to sit in bars like Romano’s until I was safely in the country. Which one, I wondered. Which hotel?
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